From Advertising to Founder: The Driftwood Tales' Tirzah Shares Her Experience

Once working in advertising, Tirzah wasn’t always too fond about the products she’d had to promote. After fantasising about a product that would be 100% decent to people and the environment for years, one day she decided to take the leap. In a bold career move that many before and after her are dreaming of, in this blog we’re zooming in on her journey with The Driftwood Tales!

From Advertising to Founder of a Sustainable Fashion Brand

Okay, so let’s start at the beginning. You decided to launch a sustainable brand. Where on earth do you start?
T: On Bali, obviously.

Laughing. But really, how was it to launch your own fashion brand?
T: We knew the fashion industry was not that sustainable, but we were surprised by the extent of it. For example, there are so many unhealthy buying and selling conventions. It’s apparently absolutely necessary to create new collections to stay relevant. Even doing small iterations can create so much environmental waste.

We also underestimated how attached people are to fast fashion prices and how tough it is to compete with those.

Scaling The Driftwood Tales' Impact

Now you managed to receive repeat orders and people are actually referring you to their friends. We could say The Driftwood Tales is quite established. What are your next steps for the company?
T: Well, we have no ambition to make The Driftwood Tales a global company with huge overheads and ultimately sacrificing our values for the sake of profit. We want to make The Driftwood Tales successful, but not at any cost. In fact, we hope we become less unique over time as good clothing will become the norm.

Love that! We actually have a similar goal with Project Cece; we want our platform to become just a regular fashion search engine as sustainability and ethical production methods will be standard.

If people want to contribute to making TDT a success, what could they do besides shopping your products?
T: Follow us, give us feedback, recommend us, spread the word of fair trade, sustainable, comfortable apparel that will make you feel good, both physically and mentally. You don’t have to buy our products, just man up and feel responsible for how we treat our world and fellow beings.

Tirzah's Experience as a Founder 

What’s your best advice for people trying to make a similar career shift from marketing into sustainability?
T: It’s all about creating cool products that people really like, apart from the sustainability element. Sustainability and ethical production should just be a hygiene factor, not the unique selling point if you want to convert people from fast fashion into the good stuff. Even the most eco-friendly produced products are not sustainable if no one wants to actually wear them!

Speaking about cool products.. Do you have a favourite one from your brand?
T: Our men’s shirts are our absolute best sellers because they are both timeless and comfortable. For me personally, I just love our recycled dungarees. Comfy, easy-going and with a bit of a girl power look

Founding The Driftwood Tales on Bali

We like the dungarees a lot too and especially the beautiful garden shoot that you did on Bali. Speaking of which. Can you tell us a bit more about your relationship with the island?
T: I live here and I have a love and hate relationship with the island and country. Love in terms of the Bali culture, nature, freedom of living, diversity of cultures coming together and conscious living with a focus on health of mind and body. Hate because living here sometimes feels like a magnifying glass in how we interact with the world. Animal welfare, workers' rights, healthcare and (plastic) pollution. It is more on the surface here and can sometimes hit hard.

With more and more negative effects from the influx of tourists on the island becoming visible, what is your personal experience and do you have any tips or advice for people to support Bali’s authentic side?
T: For investors. Bali is the Island of the Gods, and it is becoming a bit an island of greed. Please stop building for short-term personal gain and wasting the Bali feeling. Become carbon neutral ASAP. Improve waste management so the streets and the rivers are clean.